


The Good Dalish

by Lukacola



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Abusive Family Relationships, Angst, Anxiety, Depression, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Relationships, F/M, Gen, Homelessness, If I missed any tags let me know, Implied/Referenced Sex, Inquisitor Backstory, It's the lavellan backstory but with pirates and angst, M/M, Multi, Nudity, Outcast Dalish, Pirates, Prequel to Inquisition, We're throwing canon out the window, soooooo many original characters, unplanned parenthood, we'll get some familiar faces eventually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 00:33:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20380717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lukacola/pseuds/Lukacola
Summary: The year is 9:35 Dragon, and Lysander Lavellan is alone in the city of Ostwick with no real friends, no place to call home, and no hope for his future. He's made mistakes and plenty of them, and now it looks as though he's going to pay the price.But you meet all sorts of people in a port city. Never know where you might end up, if you're lucky.





	The Good Dalish

The paint on the ceiling was cracked. A thousand dark veins breaking up the dirty grey, out and out and out to the very edges of the room. Like a web, or a map, or the bones of a dead river, lost to drought and misfortune. Lys' gaze was drawn to it as he lay there on the old bed below, arms folded under his head. He wasn’t sure how long he had even been awake, but still he felt no compulsion to move, not with the steady pounding of his head. The ache that frequented most of his mornings these days. He had grown fairly accustomed to that by now. Enough that it didn't show on his face, though not enough to keep him from wallowing in self pity entirely. He enjoyed that part, in a twisted sort of way. 

His dizzying pit of contemplative hangover misery was suddenly interrupted however, by the realisation that there was a hand splayed across his chest, which almost certainly did not belong to him. Unless of course he had grown a new one during the night, and he found that somehow unlikely. This revelation was followed a moment later by another, which probably should have come much much earlier: He had absolutely no idea where he was.

Right now, however, it was probably smarter to focus on the living, breathing, and hopefully still sleeping human man by his side, but even though he recognized that logic, it still took him several seconds before he could muster the willpower to turn his head and actually look. Gaze trailing upward over the arm, and the shoulder that it was connected to. His apparent companion was slim, his skin a soft gold in the morning light that filtered in through the curtains. Entirely naked, of course, where he lay on his stomach. Messy black hair tussed over his face. His breaths deep and even. Lys watched him carefully. Taking note of the faded tattoos on his wrists, the long scar that ran up over his shoulder, even as curiosity mixed with worry all of a sudden. Another rather delayed reaction. Apart from what he could piece together from the evidence, which was less than surprising and entirely too obvious given the current state of them both, his memory would give him no clue.

There was movement then before he could even do anything about it, and Lys could already feel himself panicking as the new man stirred. Slowly drawing his hand back to cover his face, The elf's eyes remained fixed on him. Watching as the other attempted to bury his head into the pillow that it rested upon with a muffled groan. Wakefulness seemed to take it’s time in reaching him, but when it did so it was rather obvious, as he nearly froze where lay, even though Lysander had made no sound at all. He saw him swallow, and then watched as he finally turned his head to look. Tired eyes blinking away sleep. Their eyes met, and then for several long moments they were just staring at each other in silence, and Lys really did want to just get up and run away. This must have been evident on his face, as the other's expression was slowly turning to one of concern instead. His brow creasing even through his own obvious confusion. Their wordless standoff continued for what felt like and eternity, until finally he spoke. He sounded just as nervous as Lys felt.  
"I… uhm… right… ah… good morning?"

So followed an extremely awkward conversation, which Lys spent desperately wishing that he could have been somewhere else. It quickly became evident that neither of them remembered what had happened, and this revelation served only to help the knot of guilt that Lys could feel his stomach tying itself into finally pulled tight. Twisting horribly in his gut. From the look on this stranger’s face he would wager that he felt similarly.

He blinked, and then they were sitting at a table in what looked like the main room of the same living quarters. He had a cup of something in his hands, but had forgotten entirely what it was. Dressed now, though he didn't remember going searching for his clothes. The man, who’s name had turned out to be Paul, was still watching him as he sipped at his own drink. Cupping his mug in two hands. It must have been warm. Lys couldn't quite tell. Too busy staring down into his own cup, trying to remember.  
Paul was clearing his throat, and the elf was shooting an almost fervent glance to him as he finally spoke once more. "Are you okay?” he asked. “I didn't… you're not… hurt, or anything, are you?"  
There was a soft blink, before Lys shook his head. "No.” He said quietly. “No… no I'm fine... sorry, just tired..." a weak chuckle. "Sort of... a weird morning? Weirder than most at least… I mean…” trailing off to shrug his shoulders helplessly.  
There was a laugh from Paul with that, even as he nodded his head. The sound filled with more nerves than any sort of genuine humour. "Yeah, yes... pretty strange. I don't know if I've ever woken up with a-"  
"-Painted knife ear in your bed?" Lys finished the sentence with a sigh, almost dramatic. Shooting the other a brief smirk, which did not reach his eyes. "I get that one a lot, you don't have to say it."  
Surprisingly, his interruption only earned him silence. Paul just sat there, for several long moments, before he seemed to muster the courage to break the awkward silence that had fallen. "I was actually going to say 'a hangover quite that bad... You… ah… this often happens to you?”  
“Apparently.” Lys’ reply was accompanied by another shrug, shifting slightly in his chair before lifting his mug to smell its contents as he pretended to take a sip of it.  
“I see…” said Paul, who was starting to look even more awkward about the whole thing. “Well… I mean, usually I remember...”  
“Yeah..” He said after the other man had trailed off again. “It happens… we don’t have to… uhm.. I can go, if it makes you feel any better. You don’t have to keep thinking about it..”  
“No!” Paul’s reply came a moment too quickly, and he had Lys jumping, startled into meeting his gaze as he continued. “No that’s not… I didn’t mean… not unless you want to leave of course… or if you have somewhere else to be that is… sorry, I didn’t mean to… Maker I sound like an insane person.” He leaned forward, pushing his mug out of the way to rest his elbows on the table so that he could groan into his palms as they were pressed to his face, only to mutter very simply and very softly to himself. “I’m still drunk.”  
Lys caught himself staring at him at this point, the start from his exclamation having frozen the elf in place until he could manage to look down again, a small chuckle leaving him despite it all. “Yeah.” he repeated.

He was a sailor as it turned out, which had come as a surprise to Lys because he certainly didn’t look like one, or sound like one. Plus the fact that they were nowhere near any sort of ship, on the far side of the city from the docks, as he soon learned. It was half explained that this may have actually been the point, though why he of all people was being told, he had no idea. Apparently the man was in Ostwick on business for his captain or something like that. He didn’t say what sort. Lys had an inkling that whatever Paul was doing here might not have been entirely legal in any sense of the word, but he was kind, even if the morning had been awkward in its entirety. The elf remembered leaving his house feeling relatively calm. That was probably the most confusing part of the whole thing.

The rest of the day continued in a fairly mundane sort of manner. He took his time walking through the city to the docks, spent a while just sitting there watching the seagulls fighting until he was made to move. Hung around the marketplace for a little while. Checked in on a few acquaintances. Lys didn't pay much attention to life in that context anymore. Whatever would happen would happen, and all he could do was float through it, as he had come to realise. Drift and drift and drift, on and on until he eventually drowned. He was alright with that. Or so he told himself, even if the self professed apathy was not enough to stop him from continuing to at least attempt at keeping himself alive. As though he didn't care enough to actually do anything with his life, but was still too invested in the taste of stolen apples to let it end. That small part of him that was protecting everything he refused to think about buzzing constantly in the back of his mind. The problems he was refusing to face, the responsibilities he didn't want to acknowledge, even if he still wouldn't give them up entirely.

Responsibilities, as it turned out, had a habit of creeping up on you, and Lys knew that all too well. That he could only ever get away with escaping for a few days at a time lest his conscience be burdened even more than it was already, or he be stabbed to death, which wasn’t preferable. This was what led him back towards the Alienage as the winter afternoon drew to its end. The growing weight of anxiety that always came with it was on the very short list of feelings that could draw him back from wherever his mind wanted to escape to the rest of the time. Unfortunately not one of the good ones.

The sun was beginning to set. The faint glow of dusk falling over the buildings and the walls as he passed under the gate that separated the elven community from the rest of the city. He'd been in a few others outside of Ostwick before, and all of them were bad. Run down, dangerous. The kinds of places where you could smell the poverty and hopelessness, and most of the time the death that came with them too. This was no exception, but it wasn't like any of the people that were living here had any choice in the matter, whatever the shems or even his old clan liked to say about them. Lys tried his best not to think about that. Though in fairness Lys tried his best not to think about most things.

He was carried through the old alleyways on legs that were beginning to ache from his day in the cold. Arms wrapped around himself and the small bag that he was carrying now, the origin of which was not important, and would probably land him in trouble if he revealed it. Dark mop of hair peeking out from over the top of the ragged excuse for a scarf that was wrapped around the lower half of his face in some attempt at keeping his nose from freezing off. He really hated the cold, and the winding streets stood to offer little shelter from it. Not that the inside of the buildings were much better, but they at least kept some degree of rain and snow out when those came along too. The room that he was heading for stood as part of a larger building, old and dirty like the rest, it had all of its windows boarded shut on the lowest floor, and a lot of the ones above as well. There was no door left at the main entrance, and so all he had to do was climb the rickety old wooden stairway upward and make his way across the landing. He spent a few moments just stood there like always, with one hand lifted and poised to knock, silently debating whether or not he should just turn around and leave once more. And then like always, he knocked anyway.

There was a moment of silence. Two moments. Three. Four moments, and he was wondering whether there was anyone even at home. Five moments and he was about to turn around again, but just as he decided to do so, the knob, which was far too loose in it's fitting, was pulled inward, and the door was finally creaking open, just a crack.

The woman behind it let out an audible sigh almost as soon as she saw him. Muttering something inaudible to herself before opening it a touch wider. She was short and thin, with dark curls cropped tight to her head. The dark lines of her tattoos curling down her neck, visible even under the top of the white shirt that she wore tucked into worn out leather pants. Her face twisted into a gentle frown.  
"She doesn't want to see you." She said, as she always did. Usually because it was true, though Lys only offered her a guilty look in return. Trying to glance quickly over her shoulder without her noticing, though he saw nothing. He cleared his throat as he looked down at the floor instead. "I know, Naya." he replied meekly. "She never wants to see me and all that… I'm not coming in, just… here,-" the bag was offered out to her with one hand. "-I brought food."

Naya only sighed again, a touch more quietly with that. Lifting her hand to rub at her face before she reached take it from him. "I won't ask…"  
"Wouldn't expect you to.” Lys shook his head, though again he was trying to build up the courage to ask the question that the pit in his stomach required of him. "Is she okay?"  
"Nadia is fine." There was a soft huff. The smallest edge creeping into her voice, though it was kept low enough that only he would hear even so. "Cranky. If you stay much longer you’ll see for yourself.”  
Lys lifted a hand to scratch nervously at the back of his neck. "Okay, okay... I'm about to go… if there's anything else though-"  
"-we'll get it ourselves." The sharpness built to a point, and he had to bite his lip to keep from flinching. Which she did seem to notice, because the moment of silence that followed seemed rather uncomfortable for the both of them. Her expression turning briefly confused, before she started to look almost apologetic. "I'm sorry… You know it's been a long few months, Lys. And the further along she gets the worse she is, apparently. I don't want to snap.. or anything... just…"  
Lys let his arms fall to wrap around himself once more. "Don't apologise..” He said. “It's fine, it's okay… I should just go. I'll… see you."  
“That’s probably for the best.” Naya let out a reluctant breath. “Just… stay safe out there, yes? I… if there was anything I could do… but you know my sister… I can’t…”  
“I know. Wouldn’t ask you to either.” he took a small step back even as he spoke, waving her off with another shake of his head. “I’ll be fine, just let me know if… anything happens, yeah? I mean, if you can...” He finally lifted his head to shoot her a smile, but the door was already being shut in his face as another voice started up from within. Leaving him again in silence, alone with his thoughts and the whistling of the wind through the wooden boards. Back out onto the street it was then, though he had expected that, obviously. From there he didn’t know where he would end up. If he was lucky, maybe tomorrow morning would just be awkward again.


End file.
